Their reserves are held in USD. The centralization of Tether is actually strikingly similar to how Nu has operated for some time now. The only difference is that they do not supply any liquidity to the BTC/TETHER markets (and therefore do not suffer from volatility) and the owner is an identifiable person with a reputation they cannot run away from.

Do you have access to their audit reports? Holding 400m in a bank account is unusual I would say.

I personally do not, nor have I spent any time looking. Where would you hold 400m?

Cybnate:

Can we trust him with 400m? Based on what, previous records? I’m not convinced yet.

I think the market trusts them, and without credible competition, that is all that matters. It’s a bit of mental gymnastics to distrust Tether while trusting Nu, in my opinion.

Cybnate:

we need to find feasible alternatives for that in the mid to long term.

This is something that I’ve been thinking on lately. I feel it would have been easier in the early days of Nu than it is with the current model we are working under as we’ve already suffered the losses for our product, and then helped move closer to the black, thanks to the volatility.

And BitUSD is an interesting approach but I believe too expensive and uncertain. Fully backed currencies didn’t survive in the last 30-40 years. Did you know why? BitUSD may not survive because of the same reason. Just saying there is always room for improvement and there is no single fact of which system is the best (yet). We just go what we think might be best (for us). Time will tell.

I wonder shich full-backed currencies didn’t survive in the last 30-40 years? For bitUSD specifically, it’s technically possible to decrease collateral ratio. It just can’t be done now because it would be too fragile.

I would be willing to keep serious money in bitusd if the collateral ratio is above 5. Losing 70% value in a few days happens several times a year in btc futures markets, which i take as an indicator of what is possible for all cryptos once several years. That includes bitshares.

It’s a bit of mental gymnastics to distrust Tether while trusting Nu, in my opinion.

Not saying you should trust one more or the other. It is just about applying the same criteria when you trust someone or an organisation.

lissajous:

Where would you hold 400m?

Not saying
But seriously, you would invest in stocks, hedge funds, real estate etc. Money in the bank is dead money and is therefore expensive.

mhps:

I would be willing to keep serious money in bitusd if the collateral ratio is above 5

Would you be willing to pay the price for it is the real question? Someone will need to provide that collateral which comes at a cost, which lead me to:

ppitonak:

I wonder which full-backed currencies didn’t survive in the last 30-40 years

All major currencies on earth transitioned from fully backed by gold currencies into at best 2% backed by gold reserves. There is no currency on earth backed by more than 10% gold reserves as far as I’m aware.
Not saying whether that is a good thing or not. It is an observation, apparently the market forces demand this. Why? Because it is very expensive to keep all that gold and not being able to use it for something else, dead money.

Time will tell whether crypt currencies with full collateral or even 5 times collateral will survive or not. I believe the market will out price them eventually.

I’m referring to a scheme similar to that of Bitshares.
Custodians receive NBT in exchange for collateral, here in NSR.
Nu doesn’t have to hold BTC, doesn’t have to make buybacks, liquidity is being provided by custodians, who compete with each other.

You see the obvious drawback and why this is being ignored? You can’t game this scheme easily to fill your own pockets. It was for a reason that the white paper got spurned.

Business wise what @Sabreiib proposed is far superior to this puppet theatre here.
I remember having read about auctions that could be used for NBT/NSR swaps. That idea wasn’t followed either. It’s not so different from @Sabreiib’s proposal and if I remember correctly, it was made by @Nagalim.
So many good ideas, that don’t get evaluated properly, sometimes even forgotten.

Oh, and you can see how well the interests of ‘the shareholders’ are aligned with the vision of the architect. The shareholders are willing to suffer huge financial losses just to follow the lead. Even if that lead is making only those rich, who know what’s going on in detail. These are just very few these days and I doubt it have been many more in earlier days.
Do you really believe Nu is shareholder wise not centralized? I’m not even talking about the ridiculous anonymous one man show handling several hundreds of thousands of USD value, who calls Tether centralized.

All major currencies on earth transitioned from fully backed by gold currencies into at best 2% backed by gold reserves. There is no currency on earth backed by more than 10% gold reserves as far as I’m aware.

Not saying whether that is a good thing or not. It is an observation, apparently the market forces demand this. Why? Because it is very expensive to keep all that gold and not being able to use it for something else, dead money.

I can tell you what it’s good for having currencies that aren’t backes by anything, but promises.
You can exploit people more effectively.
If you want to educate yourself, have a go at Hayek’s ‘Denationalization of money’.

I remember having read about auctions that could be used for NBT/NSR swaps. That idea wasn’t followed either. It’s not so different from @Sabreiib’s proposal and if I remember correctly, it was made by @Nagalim.

So many good ideas, that don’t get evaluated properly, sometimes even forgotten.

I agree, that idea was great and ahead of its time and therefore under appreciated.

ConfusedObserver:

Do you really believe Nu is shareholder wise not centralized?

No, that doesn’t mean you can’t still have a decentralised coin. Not saying it is that now btw.

ConfusedObserver:

Nu doesn’t have to hold BTC, doesn’t have to make buybacks, liquidity is being provided by custodians, who compete with each other.

That model sounds great and I’m a big proponent of it. However we have seen its flaws, myself from very close having been an LPC for Nu. The cost are high in volatile markets and it is hard to compete for liquidity with BTC continuing to grow so fast. Still I believe there is no better system which decentralised.

Buybacks and dividends would be supplementary at best and mainly for marketing purposes.

If you want to educate yourself, have a go at Hayek’s ‘Denationalization of money’.

I’m a strong believer of the markets. And markets are manipulated by those with the most interest. With currencies that is mostly governments. The markets unfortunately not always dictate what is best for all stakeholders, only a few can outsmart the system. I doubt whether Hayek’s money can win the markets the way economies are run today (read with debt).

m a strong believer of the markets. And markets are manipulated by those with the most interest. With currencies that is mostly governments.

You really should read ‘Denationalization of money’.
In a nutshell money is decoupled from governments, hence denationalized.
Money is like goods and markets make sure that better money prevails over worse money.
This scheme could be applied to how custodians compete to provide NBT at the closest possible spread that is economically worthwhile.
At the moment Nu tries to dictate what’s possible, but can’t. The markets do. Nu is just a bad central bank with people in charge by and large clueless about money and economics on the one hand and willing to exploit current and future NBT and NSR holders on the other hand.

Nu won’t change for the better. Anything that came after the white paper made Nu worse and exploiting easier. Phoenix will drop Nu like a hot potatoe, once he’s sure that he can’t gouge anything more out of it.
It’s easier selling NSR in buybacks than putting hard work into it, trying to make Nu a decentralized stable currency provider.
It’s a rational choice, but doesn’t make Phoenix a nice person
Considering how each transformation of Nu’s business scheme was supporting exploitation, I need to call Jordan/Phoenix a scammer.
The ‘lost’ billion NSR comes on top. But hey, it’s only one third of all existing NSR that got lost. Not so bad, right?
This couldn’t have happened with a multisig group trading NSR in seeded auctions.
You see how this ponzi scheme works?
Jordan can’t afford to have it truly decentralized. He needs to remain in control.

Money is like goods and markets make sure that better money prevails over worse money.

I agree with you on that. However it is unclear how better money looks like. It may be something else than what you and I would see as better money.

ConfusedObserver:

It’s easier selling NSR in buybacks than putting hard work into it, trying to make Nu a decentralized stable currency provider.

And this is the perfect example of it. There may be other driver at play valuing certain ways of working higher in the short term by major stakeholders acting on those markets.

ConfusedObserver:

The ‘lost’ billion NSR comes on top. But hey, it’s only one third of all existing NSR that got lost. Not so bad, right?

This couldn’t have happened with a multisig group trading NSR in seeded auctions.

As said before working on a solution for at least the multi-sig part. Doesn’t make good what has happened, still incomprehensible to me. But probably also driven by taking on known risks deliberately or severely underestimating them. It doesn’t matter, both result in bad outcomes.

ConfusedObserver:

Jordan can’t afford to have it truly decentralized.

Maybe not after what happened with a decentralised multisig team falling apart mid-flight, due to lack of direction and agreement and properly spelled out contracts supporting the system in place. The cost of decentralised liquidity provisioning has been tried but proved either unreliable or costly. It was hard to get an acceptable balance between the two. I have seen that from very close myself. The right answers are not that clear cut, more work in this space is desperately needed imo. I would still advocate for decentralised liquidity provisioning, but there are a few steps to make before we are ready for that.

There is a huge difference between comparing the possible failure of bitcoin and the possible failure of Nu. First off Bitcoin is much much more decentralized than Nu in every possible way. Second, it’s currently being used as a multi-billion USD daily financial instrument and utility, it has established it’s role and is rapidly gaining adoption.

Nu currently is the most centralized crypto available, period. The fact that @jooize & @Phoenix privately pay out “contractors” without any community discussion or approval alone makes it completely centralized. I’m going to point back to Dash and remind all of you of why they are a multi-billion USD market cap crypto operating within the same time period as Nu. TRUE DECENTRALIZED GOVERNANCE! No single person or small group decides where the networks money goes, ever. 20% off all newly created block rewards (Dash) go to the monthly budget which the distribution of is publicly voted on by MasterNode owners. What is the result? COMPLETE transparency to start! As well as thorough and detailed plans of how money will be used with the entire community able to hold these lets call them “contractors” accountable. Knowing exactly what they were paid and exactly what they were supposed to do.

If you guys continue to call yourself “decentralized” or “transparent” without making any real changes to reflect that… I PROMISE YOU I will be the loudest person on every forum, at every btc conference (I go to them all), in every IRC chat (freenode all day) every fucking platform available calling you guys out for the frauds you currently are. I would love to see Nu change & succeed but as it is you guys are a complete joke.

DASH doesn’t count, ok? They were lucky that transparent contractor payments worked out so far. They were lucky that they are now a multi-billion dollar platform. Nu is the real deal! The most transparent business in the world!

I’m going to point back to Dash and remind all of you of why they are a multi-billion USD market cap crypto operating within the same time period as Nu. TRUE DECENTRALIZED GOVERNANCE! No single person or small group decides where the networks money goes, ever. 20% off all newly created block rewards (Dash) go to the monthly budget which the distribution of is publicly voted on by MasterNode owners. What is the result? COMPLETE transparency to start! As well as thorough and detailed plans of how money will be used with the entire community able to hold these lets call them “contractors” accountable. Knowing exactly what they were paid and exactly what they were supposed to do.

The last one to say that I don’t like the Dash model. What I believe is still hidden that there are some good leaders amongst this decentralised group. I believe that is a key requirement to make it work. Leaders will need strong incentives to stay and keep it going. The Dash model with the ‘investment’ of each governance group member works well with a growing network as far as I can see. Not sure what would happen when the network growth stalls or shrink which will happen at some time in the future. Nevertheless the model is way better than the current Nu model regarding decentralised governance, not challenging that for a second.

QGM-ETF.md

## Quite good money ETF - on the way to good money using crypto currency funds
ConfusedObserver
confusedObserver101@gmail.com
https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=33113
November 04, 2016
Version 0.40, minor adjustments
## Abstract

Ofc, I only evaluate what I see and draw conclusions from it. I wouldn’t call Jordan a scammer lightly. The circumstantial evidence isn’t in favor of Jordan to say the least.
Does anyone here believe that Benjamin was no sock puppet of Jordan?

Cybnate:

ConfusedObserver:

Jordan can’t afford to have it truly decentralized.

Maybe not after what happened with a decentralised multisig team falling apart mid-flight, due to lack of direction and agreement and properly spelled out contracts supporting the system in place. The cost of decentralised liquidity provisioning has been tried but proved either unreliable or costly. It was hard to get an acceptable balance between the two.

You focus on operational aspects, where I was merely pointing out that Jordan can only scam the most out of it, if he has sufficient control

Let me make accommodate you with thoughts about operational and economical aspects.
You say there was lack of direction. Why didn’t the shareholders direct them?

The cost of reliable decentralized liquidity provision can’T be determined by Nu, it can only be given by the markets.
Nu can either specify the cost (USD) or a part of the reliability (volume, spread). The market needs to sort the rest out.
To be more specific: Nu can determine two of the three (cost, volume, spread). The third needs to be made by the market.

Proteus:

Nu currently is the most centralized crypto available, period.

+1

Proteus:

I PROMISE YOU I will be the loudest person on every forum, at every btc conference (I go to them all), in every IRC chat (freenode all day) every fucking platform available calling you guys out for the frauds you currently are.

They already earned that

Proteus:

I would love to see Nu change & succeed but as it is you guys are a complete joke

Not possible to make that happen, unless you create a new community and shareholder base that’s free from Jordan and his sock puppets and minions as good as possible. How else will you deal with the billion NSR that got ‘lost’ and the mysterious seed investors?
Augeas would be a way to start that.

Because Actions Speak Louder Than Words.
I'd like to introduce you to Augeas.
Inspired by the work done by @mhps, I wondered if the minority shareholders, who were very active in discussion and ideation, but were outvoted a few months back, could have an opportunity to take a different path.
Augeas is a fork of the B&C Exchange codebase v5.0.1.
Augeas has initial share distribution targeted to those who may have wanted to take a different path.
Coin Description
Augeas has AugeasSha…

Cybnate:

Well try to work with us, get shares and support making changes.

Why trying to get shares of such a corrupted project? You can’t beat Jordan in terms of control. Given the current minting rate, I bet of he wants, he can storm the network with some old shares and push any grant through. Nu is as decentralized project a lost cause.
Now Nu is a mere playing field. I will never buy a single NSR, but try to learn some lessons here. I have a hard time learning about economics here, but I learn about psychology

You say there was lack of direction. Why didn’t the shareholders direct them?

I believe there are only two reasonable explanations:

They didn’t want to provide this type of leadership as they then still believed in a decentralised approach

They set it up to fail so they could take control back.
Problem with the last statement is why it was ever given away in the first place. To sell more shares? If this is a scam, it is incredibly sophisticated and still going on. Not impossible, but also unlikely imo.

ConfusedObserver:

To be more specific: Nu can determine two of the three (cost, volume, spread). The third needs to be made by the market.

The problem is that without at least some control of those three, the network gets into trouble. The other problem is that this model only works on massive well established markets, something crypto is still far away from but eventually getting there I believe.

ConfusedObserver:

but I learn about psychology

Good, as this get more and more important. Just looks at the politics of the world, I believe the forum is an interesting reflection of it. One of the reasons I’m sticking around. Lessons are barely learnt in success stories, they are learnt when mistakes are made.

ConfusedObserver:

Augeas would be a way to start that.

For some reason there is not a lot of interest in it. I think you will need some seed funding and a driven team to kick it off. Apparently that is not what the shareholder are in for after the FLOT adventure. Keen to hear why you think it is not coming of the ground as it would likely point to why Nu is still running.